The Justice Department said Tuesday former CIA Director Petraeus was charged with one count of unauthorized removal and retention of classified information. The former top army general had signed an agreement pleading guilty to the single criminal count.

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Associated Press /
March 3, 2015

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General David Petraeus gestures during the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on his nomination to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency in Washington, June 23, 2011. Petraeus has pleaded guilty in federal court to a charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified information, the US Justice Department said on Tuesday.

Yuri Gripas/Reuters/File

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Charlotte, North Carolina

Former CIA Director David Petraeus has agreed to plead guilty to mishandling classified materials, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

A Justice Department statement says a plea agreement has been filed in U.S. District Court in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The agency says the former top Army general was charged with one count of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material. The statement says Petraeus had signed an agreement pleading guilty to the single criminal count.

Petraeus' lawyers David Kendall and Robert Barnett in Washington declined to comment.

The case was filed in Charlotte, the hometown of Paula Broadwell, the general's biographer and former mistress.

Federal investigators had been looking into whether Petraeus improperly shared classified materials with Broadwell, with whom he admitted having an affair when he resigned from his position in November 2012. A law enforcement official had previously said agents found a substantial number of classified documents on Broadwell's computer and at her home.

Both have publicly apologized for the relationship. They have said their romantic relationship began only after he retired from the military and started at the CIA.

The scandal marked an abrupt fall for Petraeus, a man who led U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and was thought to be a potential candidate for president.